Behind Ourself Concealed
by Secret Sin
Summary: A journey home is not measured in steps or days. Survival is not a matter of endurance alone. The road back is twisted and dark and has few promises of hope or joy, but she is willing to face the shadows of her soul and fight the demons that tear at her mind if it means she will see those she loves once more. Hiei/Botan eventually. Dark!Fic.
1. Chapter 1

**This...I don't even know how to describe this... I'm not even sure where exactly this came from, or why precisely I'm posting it at the moment. I have a great deal of this written down - and I do mean _written_, I wrote the first five chapters in a notebook and now I'm dealing with the fun task of typing it all up and editing it - and nearly ready to post, and have had it as such for quite a while now. I wasn't really sure that I wanted to post it until I was done with _Contentment, _but since that has now taken on a life of its own and is looking like it is going to be a longer fic, I figured I might as well just throw this puppy out there for the world to see. I am still going to be working on _Contentment _and it will be my priority fic, I'm afraid to say, as this one is so...well, _draining_ that dedicating too much time to it might just make my mind implode.**

**A warning - and it is very important that this is read - this is a rather dark story, much darker than anything I have written before, and it does involve some rather sensitive subjects. I have tried not to be insensitive or tasteless in my writing - and I absolutely refuse to go into details or go to deeply into the scenes throughout this story - though I am aware that just posting this story may very well be viewed as such. I am open to any thoughts on the matter, and if anyone does feel strongly that this story should be taken down I will do so without argument. This will, eventually, be a Hiei/Botan fic, though it will take quite some time to get there.  
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**On a lighter note, the title of this story is from one of my favorite poems of one of my favorite poets and the poem itself had a great deal of influence on my writing of this story. I'm not going to say what poem or poet, as I am going to issue a little challenge to my readers ;) I'll write a one-shot (whatever topic or pairing or whatnot) for the first person to correctly identify the poem and its author. More than a little cocky on my behalf that you would want me to write you something? You bet. Am I going to do it anyway? Absolutely :)  
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**Reviews are loved and reviewers worshiped and concrit absolutely adored.  
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**I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho or its many wonderful characters.  
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**- Sin  
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**_Behind Ourself Concealed_  
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**Prologe: _LXX_  
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**_She died, - this was the way she died;  
_**

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It was not the first time Koenma had sent her out on her own for a task. Yusuke could complain all he liked about the amount of missions the toddler prince sent him on, but he had no idea what the work load of the average Ferrier of the Dead was like. A few assignments every month or so with three strong fighters at his back – while, yes, incredibly dangerous – really wasn't anything to write home about for the servants of Enma and his godling son. Let alone when compared to the long list of impossible tasks rested on her weary shoulders on a daily basis. For those such as herself, death was a very real threat with a very slim chance of avoidance.

She wasn't dismissing the insane missions the little team she loved so dearly were given not in the slightest. The things they were sent off to do terrified her, worried her until she was physically ill over their safety. It was all very well and good for a demi-god to send the ragtag group of fighters off on what usually amounted to a suicide mission, Koenma was removed from the mortals he commanded, what did he know of true worry? He was closer than his far-distant father, yes, but still observing everything through a thick pane of glass. A child watching a show of his own orchestrating, a mere boy playing with his living toys. Ordering _her_ to complete a task that would ultimately end in death was one thing; she was a simple creature of Reikai, little better than a machine that had been crafted to serve her all powerful masters. If she was given a command then she obeyed, there was no declining, no requesting another task or being too frightened to do as ordered. She carried on, "yes sir" and a smile, off to whatever fate her masters' wishes would bring. If she failed then others would be sent to succeed, if she succeeded there were other tasks waiting. A little machine, a toy, a pawn, something useful but easily replaced.

Her boys though…

She loved all of them more than any aspect of death should love living creatures. Each one holding a special place in her old and dusty heart. Each one more precious to her than any treasure or power or promise. For them alone she would sacrifice everything, turn her back on her Realm and Masters, turn the three worlds upside down. Seeing them hurt, seeing them injured and in pain and so close to death…it destroyed her a little more each and every time. Shattered a fragile part of her that could not be regained once lost.

But that wasn't the point at the moment. The point at the moment was that she had been sent on another errand. Something small, a typical task from Koenma that was the closest thing to a vacation any servant of Reikai would ever get to having. A quick retrieval run, a little lost and found mission for an object that was generally regarded by Enma or his son as not terribly important or powerful, but something that was best kept locked away in the Vault on the off-chance ignoring it would come back to bite them all in the ass. The only reason she had been sent was that it _had_, in fact, once been stashed away in the vault and a careless young Koenma had lost it in the River Styx some centuries ago.

The Eye of Tsuyo-sa.

Relatively it was thought to be a benign sort of artifact. Ancient and shrouded in secrets, like all the best things were. Its power was limited once removed from the ancient, gnarled staff it had been bound to long ago. The staff, of course, was safely tucked away in Enma's treasure room and out of reach of any one too hungry for their own good. The loss of the staff rendered the jewel that crowned it little better than a murky-looking ruby in most hands. Pretty, true, but useless unless someone was familiar with the centuries old ritual and long-dead language that activated the gleaming artifact. To her knowledge, no one living did, not that _that_ particular fact mattered to those who handed out the various missions.

As per her usual for the past two hundred years or so, she was on her own for the run. She had been wrapped in clothing only slightly better suited to her task then her beloved pink kimono, sweltering in the thick fabric under the harsh summer sun. Hers were fine clothes in the bright colors of Enma's palace, articles she was to wear that would do more to attract attention to her than they ever could do something practical but protocol demanded her and other servants to wear while on such missions. It shouldn't have mattered what she wore though; she would be sniffing through a particularly lonely stretch of the human realm, there shouldn't have been anything for her to worry about. It was true that her destination was close to the Makai border, but she was still in the relatively safest of the three realms. It all should have been simple. Of course, such things were always _meant_ to be simple, never actually turning out the way they had been planned in one way or another, but still…This time though…this time when things went wrong it was different. _Worse._

She hadn't expected Them.

A group twenty-something strong of demons, rogues on the run from Makai for their horrible deeds, huddled just on the human side of the border waiting for the right time to slip back to their native lands.

They hadn't been waiting for her; it hadn't been some grand plan to lure her in so they could ambush her or a clever ploy to capture a Reikai spirit. It was a simple trick of fate, unfortunate, but still just a twist of life. She hadn't known they would be there, they hadn't known she would come. If it had ended differently, happier, it might have been comical. Something seen in one of the cartoons Kuwabara was so fond of watching on early weekend mornings over bowls of sugary cereal. Surprised gazes meeting one another, a long pause, a shout and then a chase scene to upbeat gag music with a number of doors being run in and out of before the hero finally escaped in a feat of desperation and over-dramatics. Another day another commercial break.

Except it wasn't like that.

A band of demon males, all hungry for the presence of a woman – willing or not – isolated in their attempts to hide from Makai authority and Reikai prison. They outnumbered her and even if they hadn't she was incapable of fending off even the weakest of them on her own. They had been in a cave, she couldn't fly away, couldn't escape. She had known what was going to happen even as she desperately attempted to flee from them, as she bit and clawed and screamed against their clawing hands, as they overwhelmed her and dragged her off to the darkest part of their lair.

When through glinting teeth and malevolent gazes they crooned and cawed about what they were going to do to her it had all become a matter of accepting the horrible reality of the situation. She realized after they left her, huddled and shivering and brutalized, that there really wasn't any way she would have gotten out of the mission unscathed. There had been no chance of the happy, victorious return or a quick relaxed errand run.

It only could have ended one way.


	2. Chapter 2

**So I'm posting the second chapter a day later because A) it was ready to be posted, and B) I felt that it gave a little better introduction to the story to have the first two chapters read back to back. The rest of the updates will probably (will most definitely) not be this close together, especially since I'm starting to really get into the next few chapters of _Contentment _and I'll probably get all obsessive and weird over it .  
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**I want to give my very special thanks to ReaperDemon and to Dueling Fire Demon for being so incredibly supportive and sweet in their reviews! It means so much to me to hear what you two have to say and you guys really get me inspired to write like no other! :D  
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**I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho or its wonderful characters, I am just tormenting them for a time for my own twisted amusement...  
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**- Sin  
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_**Behind Ourself Concealed**_

**Chapter One:**_** XXV  
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_**The sun kept setting, setting still;  
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Koenma waited three weeks to tell them.

_Three weeks_.

The coward. Too afraid of their wrath to let them know that Botan had gone missing, too aware of their fury at the knowledge that he would even send her out on missions alone in the first place. It didn't matter to them that she had been doing so for years before they had known her, decades and centuries even, it didn't matter that it was a "routine" run and that the worst that was meant to happen was that she might get lost or be held up by bad weather. She was…she was the innocent one, the one untouched by evil and darkness. The only one amongst them that was worth saving, worth anything at all really. The rest of their team - and even years later, after all was said and done and they had scattered to the winds to their new lives, they were still a team – was stained by blood and darkness, but her…

She was their lightness. She had pulled them through so much in her own odd ways. Wide smiles and cheerful laughter in the darkest of moments. Shoulders that were strong despite their dainty existence, always there to lean upon, always there for the tears they could not admit to shedding. She was often ridiculous and airily detached from the world, but that was…that was alright. Because she needed to be, because _they_ needed her to be. She took their secrets and kept them; she took their tears and dried them. She healed their physical wounds and soothed as best she could the damages that lied beneath their skin.

That she was gone…that she was gone because of the poor judgment of one who should have been her friend…her protector…

Yusuke might have beaten the bratty prince half to death, would have had the full support of the former team in doing so he knew, but was beaten to the – quite literal – punch by the great blue ogre that served as Koenma's assistant, the demon taking great pleasure already expressing his fury over the matter. Continued to do so, in fact, the entire time that Yusuke and Kurama were there in Koenma's office. George the Oni snarled and growled the entire time his master explained the situation, the ogre unexpectedly loud in his anger over the circumstances that had brought two of the four to Reikai. They had known that George had at least a small ferocity to him, he was an Oni after all and such viciousness was in their nature, but the blue demon had never so openly expressed himself in his feelings, least of all to his master.

George paced the length of the room as Koenma, behind a well-deserved black eye that the prince had not the gall to reprimand his servant for delivering, gave a slow, stuttering explanation of the situation. They knew that their Ferry girl and the Oni were friendly, though it seemed they were closer than they had first assumed. As unfortunate as the situation was, it was appreciated that at least one member of Reikai's ranks was as concerned as they were. And as furious.

"What the Hell were you thinking, sending her off on her own like that?!" Yusuke slammed his fists against the solid wooden surface of Koenma's desk, enjoying how the prince winced at the noise. "For fuck's sake! She's Botan, _Botan_! She shouldn't be going on missions at all! She's a Ferry Girl isn't she? Her job's to ferry Souls! Not run around playing fetch for you and your old man!" The black haired man leaned across the desk, glaring down at the older-formed Koenma, restraint pulled as taught as a piano string. A hand, calm but strong, telling of a barely controlled fury, wrapped in a vice like grip upon the son of Raizen's arm. When the former detective glanced over his shoulder to Kurama he found the fox had settled an intense, frightening gaze upon Reikai's prince. The green of the not-quite-demon's gaze occasionally flickering a dangerous gold. It was just the two of them, the other two members of their team off occupied with their own lives, unaware of the news that the fox and the former detective had been delivered.

Koenma swallowed thickly beneath both men's ferocious gazes, hands clenched in tight fists as he tried to remain calm and explain himself. "Botan is a servant of Reikai. Her main obligation was as a Ferrier of the Dead, yes, but she still had a number of other duties to perform." The prince stared blankly at his hands, shoulders pulling taught as the Oni at his back gave a particularly vicious growl. "You have to understand, Botan is an experienced Spirit, hundreds of years old - one of if not _t__he_ oldest human spirit in all Reikai. She's done thousands of these runs before, most of them on her own. This..." The brunette closed his eyes tightly, his face undoubtedly aching from the swelling and dark bruising he had been given, his frame tense and tired. "Not returning...it's never happened before, not to her."

"But it _has_ happened, to others of her kind." Kurama's voice was low, dangerous. Foxes, by nature, were social creatures, pack animals. Protective of those within their group and aggressive to those who threatened the family. Their Ferry Girl's disappearance was a result of Koenma's poor ability to protect her, protect a member of their odd little pack. "It has happened to others and you knew there was a risk that something could happen to her and you sent her out anyway." Yusuke was never so thankful for Kurama's rigid self-control as when his friend finally removed his hand, the bone in the dark haired man's arm feeling as if it might crack under the fox's tight hold. "She's a healer; she had no way of defending herself if something went wrong." Kurama's voice never wavered, a level, dangerous sound to all who heard it. "And now she's gone."

Koenma shook slightly beneath the accusation, fighting his guilt and the anger they were directing towards him. "Botan is an experienced Spirit." He spoke the same words as before, as if they could excuse what had happened. "She knows how to take care of herself; she knows how to get around without drawing attention to her." The prince looked up at them, his emotions bared openly as he did so. "Nothing is supposed to happen to her. We'll find her. We'll find her and she's going to be okay. She's strong...she...she is going to be okay." In the waver of the godling's voice they could hear what Koenma couldn't say, what they themselves thought and felt. She was going to be okay, because she _h__ad_ to be. Because they would not survive it if she wasn't. If anything happened to her...

It would destroy them.

"I'm going to go get Kuwabara and let the other's know." Yusuke shuffled, turning his back on the cowed prince, shoulders hunched high around his ears. "We're going to need all the help we can get if we're going to follow a month's old trail." He cast a final look over his shoulder, meeting Kurama's gaze one last time before giving a short nod and roughly pushing his way out of the office. The snarling blue Oni followed quickly after with a purpose to his stride, leaving the prince and the fox alone.

"If anything has happened to her...I will not be the only one to take payment in your flesh Koenma." Kurama narrowed a sharp gaze upon the prince. "I cannot even promise that I will be the one to take the most pleasure in it, though make no mistake I will enjoy killing you if harm has befallen her." With that final promise, the fox turned on his heal, smoothly exiting the large room with swift, controlled movements. "If something comes up you will find me in Makai, you'll find things rather unpleasant if Hiei discovers your carelessness from an outside source."

The heavy wooden doors shut with a soft click behind the red head, leaving Koenma with the chill of the fox's words and the certain knowledge of the wrath that would soon befall him. Curling his head into his arms, Koenma sniffed and whimpered, wishing desperately for the comfort of lavender eyes and soft blue hair at his side. Wishing more fervently still that it was not his own commands that had caused her absence.

Alone and guilt ridden, the Prince of Reikai wept.

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Her clothing had been torn away long ago. They didn't bother giving her anything to ware in replacement, only allowing for a threadbare swatch of fabric to be her comfort. And even that sorry excuse of a covering was more for their own comfort then any pretense at kindness. The cloth did nothing to protect her from the cold damp of the cave; it did even less when she attempted to keep herself from being exposed. The only true use she could find for it was in staunching any bleeding wounds left behind after the _visits_.

Time had long ago lost meaning to her in the dark, squalid hole her captors called base. Light could not reach her, save for the dim flickering of fire from further down the cavern where They slept in comfort and warmth. Day and night were concepts that had long faded away to the bleakness, she slept when she could not find the will to stay awake, she woke when she could no longer bare the images her haggard mind conjured. The times in between fill with leering faces and creatures who saw her as nothing more than an object. She thought, in the quiet moments when it was just her and her shackles and the endless drip, drip, drip of the water nearby, that she might have been there for days. Though perhaps not. Perhaps weeks, months? She wouldn't have been surprised to learn that centuries had past. Time was indifferent to her suffering, keeping its own company as it steadily ticked on, leaving all others to fall behind to dust and death.

Sometimes, when she slept or when the things they did to her were so terrible that her mind pulled in on itself, she dreamed. Her visions usually ran along the same terrible line. Her in the cave, the same nightmarish acts that plagued her in waking became somehow even worse in sleep. She dreamed that it really had been years that had gone by, decades flying past her so quickly she could not even count them, centuries gone in a blink, all the while she waited in the dark, cold and alone and desperate, waiting for her boys to come and rescue her. Always wasting away to bone and dust, her beloved team never coming for her.

The dreams were part of why she _wasn't_ waiting for the team to save her.

She loved them and trusted them, despite the lies her mind conjured, she knew her much beloved, oft disorderly boys _could_ sweep in and save the day. Charging in with swords drawn and whips ready and energy flying, put an end to it all with an ease that would almost be obscene if it wasn't so well intended. She knew that by then – if her shaky estimation of time passed was anywhere near accurate, though she doubted it – Koenma would have informed them of her failure to return. They would already have begun searching for her as best they could, determined and assured of their success because she knew they would be unable to deal with their failure. She was one of a collection of servants in Reikai, easily replaceable in all respects save for the memories of those she knew. She had been the midwife to Koenma's mother, his nanny when he was an actual infant and toddler, his tutor when he had finally reached childhood. She was very old, and had come to know many people and serve them all as well as she could. She could never claim to be anything important, but she could claim that she had friends she trusted with her life.

But…in all truth, as much as she loved her boys and their allies, as much as she trusted them, she did not want them to find and rescue her.

By no means did she want to _remain_ in that dark, damnable hellhole. She did not want to remain in the hold of the demons she hated so fiercely – she would go so far as to say she would relish their deaths, enjoy watching them die even – but she did not want her little team to be there. She did not want them to see her in such disrepair, didn't want her boys to see the damage that had been inflicted upon her, the evidence of the crimes committed upon her. She knew them, knew what they would do and what they would feel about it all. She knew they would be furious and bloodthirsty, understanding and kind and cautious. They would be protective of her for all the things they had been unable to protect her from, treat her like splintered glass to be handled with care or be so overwrought by their failure they would avoid her completely. She wouldn't be able to survive that, it would kill her in a way the parasites who held her then would never be able to.

And, she knew, they would be broken by the wretched ordeal. The parts of their souls that were so determined to protect and defend, to fight and kill the enemy, to stand undefeated, would be chipped and torn by the fact that there was _nothing_ they could do. Nothing they could have done when it started and nothing they could have done when it all came to an end. They would all deal with the situation in their own ways, but they would all be tarnished by it as well. She loved them all too much to see them as anything less than what they were, let alone because of her.

There was a part of her, the part that the team saw the most but was in truth honestly such a small piece of who she was, that wanted to break down. To cry, to sob over what they were doing to her. Wanted to fall into hysterics and never rise above them again, she wanted to close her eyes and never open them, scream until her throat bled and her vocal cords snapped. That part of her, that small, useless part of her wanted to surrender to the dark and its horrors. She was tired, she was beaten and alone and everything that They had done to her…

No.

She wouldn't, _couldn't_.

She collected the bitter, broken pieces of that worn and weary part of herself and forced them away. Threw them away into a small box at the back of her thoughts to let it rot and fester for the rest of her life, never to be seen again. Buried the pain and fear in the wretched graveyard of her mind where she had laid to (un)rest so much of her past. In life she had experienced worse - though moments of the present always seemed to much more real than those of the past – demons could be cruel and brutal, but they lacked the self-loathing savagery innate in human nature. Her life had been harsh and cruel, her death had been so brutal and horrific that even the wretches who had captured her would shutter at the details. There was worse, so much worse in the world, she would not let her weaknesses take control.

She would not allow Them to have the satisfactions of her emotions.

They would not get to break her, they would not be allowed to have her mind as well as her body. She was not strong, but she was stubborn and she would last long enough to watch each and every one of them die. Then, and only then, would she give in to her weaknesses. She would survive, like she had in life, like she _hadn't_ in life. She would escape Them, she would return to Reikai and when she had healed and she had steeled herself for it she would see her boys with all the hapless cheer they knew her for. And, for their sakes, she would smile and laugh and pretend that she didn't remember a damn thing about the entire ordeal.

Ignorance was bliss, even if it meant assuming it belonged to others.


End file.
